During hydrocarbon recovery operations, tubular components of a wellbore, e.g., casing or tubing strings disposed within the wellbore, serve as conduits through which hydrocarbons, such as oil and gas, are produced from a subsurface formation to processing facilities at the surface. Therefore, such tubular components must be sufficiently strong to withstand the pressures and stresses associated with fluid flow between the formation and wellbore surface during drilling, production and stimulation operations. In wellbore tubular design, there is generally a tradeoff between costs and the physical size or thickness of the component. While wellbore tubular components that are too thin may be insufficient to withstand the pressures and loads expected for the wellbore, the additional costs associated with tubular components that are too thick may outweigh any increase in strength or durability that the extra thickness may provide.
A critical design parameter for wellbore tubular components is the “safety factor”. Traditionally, the safety factor is defined as a ratio of the tubular component's resistance to its load. The safety factor for a wellbore tubular design therefore provides a measure of the reliability of the particular design. However, safety factors determined using such conventional techniques may not be representative of actual load conditions that can occur during a hydrocarbon recovery operation. Accordingly, wellbore tubular designs based on such conventional safety factors may be inadequate for the actual loads that can be expected during the hydrocarbon recovery operation.